Again, not free markets in the ancap sense. A truly freed market requires us to dismantle all non-state forms of coercion and privilege that distort economic interactions.
There is nowhere left of me to punch. I’m punching up at the Auths
“Distort economic interactions” is idealist nonsense, as is this whole conception of a “truly freed market.” Here in reality, groups pursue their own interests, and in a capitalist system, wealth will concentrate enough that the bourgeoisie will inevitably be able to seize power and change the laws to create a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, unless they are prevented from doing so through “Auth” means. “Auth” is not a real political alignment, it’s a bedtime story your rulers tell you to make sure you don’t get any funny ideas about trying to actually wield power or challenge them. There is only one physical reality, and what happens in that reality is a function of who holds power and what they do with it. When starving peasants are storming the gates of the rich to seize their food, what is more or less authoritarian, to stop them, to help them, or to sit back and watch? It is a nonsense concept.
Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.
There is a practical process of dismantling state-enforced monopolies and coercion. Authoritarianism, whether bourgeois or revolutionary, perpetuates centralised power. True liberation arises not from seizing power but from rendering coercive systems obsolete through counter-economic action.
In reality, political revolution only changes rulers; the system of coercion remains. Only through economic revolution can true liberation be achieved.
Nothing idealist about it. Seems the be the only praxis that’s made any progress actually rather than circlejerking over theory we know doesn’t work.
It’s always very funny the absolute disdain people have towards Lenin and his body of work, or rather, the disdain you have towards the idea of reading anything he wrote. Even from a purely historical perspective, he’s one of the most important people of the 20th century, if not all history. And yet you always refuse to read anything he wrote while having very strong opinions regarding his ideology. His greatest crime, of course, was that he had the audacity to put theory into practice, and to do things to actually affect material change rather than sitting around theorizing.
True liberation arises not from seizing power but from rendering coercive systems obsolete through counter-economic action.
This is nonsense because without power it is impossible to affect change. In order to conduct counter-economic action, you must have some ability to influence the economic sphere, which is to say, power. You can dress it up in flowery language all you like, but ultimately, you have a vision of the world that you’re seeking to enforce through economic power. The only difference is that you’re choosing to tie a hand behind your back before fighting a pack of lions. Building and exerting economic power is all well and good, but it would be incredibly foolish not to use any means of power available (including political) in a life-or-death struggle against a far stronger foe. And what do you get in exchange, the satisfaction of feeling like you’re being ideologically consistent, while the state guns down everyone you care about?
Diffuse coercion is optimally handled by local, immediate self-defense. Though the market may develop larger-scale businesses for protection and restoration, random threats of violence can only be dealt with on the spot ad hoc.
This is fully suicidal. States have the ability to leverage overwhelming force against “local, immediate self-defense,” which they pretty much always have been since the days of knights and lords, but it is especially absurd in the context of modern militaries.
The crushing of the Paris Commune, the lack of coordination in Republic Spain… the only reason anybody thinks this is at all viable or desireable is because they haven’t seen it in action, and they haven’t seen it in action because people learned from it’s historical failures, or they were defeated.
Even if the forces were evenly matched (which they wouldn’t be), it’s very easy to divide and conquer. Without a unified front, forces cannot be dispatched to defend strategically vital locations, people will insist on defending their own homes and towns, which a centrally managed force can easily take advantage of.
Libertarianism elaborates an entire philosophy from one simple premise: initiatory violence or its threat (coercion) is wrong (immoral, evil, bad, supremely impractical, etc.) and is forbidden; nothing else is.
This is extraordinarily idealist. “Initiatory violence” is a concept inherently tied to property rights. It is also completely wrong. Is is wrong (immoral, evil, suprememely impractical) for a starving man to steal bread for his family? Or does theft not count as “initiatory violence” if you really, really need it?
But let’s use a more real world example. There are many countries around the world where the people live in abject poverty, even though the natural resources are quite plentiful. In many cases, their resources were seized by force during colonialism, and now continue to be owned by foreign multinational corporations. Is it wrong (immoral, evil, supremely impractical) for those nations to reclaim control of those resources, given the opportunity? And for that matter, was it “supremely impractical” for colonial powers to seize those resources in the first place? Because it seems like the people who did it made a lot of money off of it and died quite rich and happy.
Of course, this moral proclamation is handed down from on high by the author, without establishing any kind of philosophical basis for it, let alone any consideration of how thing function in the actual, material world. Why should I not simply reject this assertion?
His greatest crime, of course, was that he had the audacity to put theory into practice, and to do things to actually affect material change rather than sitting around theorising, which the Western left despises above all else.
The issue isn’t the implementation of theory but the centralisation of power. Lenin’s approach replaced one form of coercion with another, perpetuating oppression under a different guise. True liberation arises from dismantling coercive systems entirely and fostering voluntary, decentralised networks that operate independently of centralised control.
This is nonsense because without power it is impossible to affect change… Building and exerting economic power is all well and good, but it would be foolish not to use any means of power available (including political) in a life-or-death struggle against a far stronger foe.
Political power often reinforces the very structures it seeks to dismantle. Genuine change stems from creating resilient, voluntary networks that operate in the shadows, gradually eroding state influence through counter-economic activities. By building these systems, we undermine coercive institutions without legitimising them through political engagement.
This is fully suicidal. States have the ability to leverage overwhelming force against “local, immediate self-defence,” which they pretty much always have… Without a unified front, forces cannot be dispatched to defend strategically vital locations.
By the time local self-defence becomes necessary, the state’s power will have diminished due to the proliferation of decentralised, counter-economic networks. These networks, operating independently, build resilience and adaptability, making it impossible for centralised authorities to suppress them effectively.
Initiatory violence is a concept inherently tied to property rights… Is it wrong (immoral, evil, supremely impractical) for a starving man to steal bread for his family?
A starving individual seeking sustenance isn’t initiating violence, the coercive system that led to their deprivation bears responsibility. Reclaiming resources taken through coercion is justified, whereas establishing new systems of authority through violence perpetuates cycles of oppression.
Why should I not simply reject this assertion?
Coercive systems have consistently failed to deliver genuine freedom. Building decentralised, voluntary networks offers a sustainable path to liberation, circumventing the instability and oppression inherent in centralised power structures. Historical evidence demonstrates that centralised authority always leads to systemic failure and human suffering.
In order to conduct counter-economic action, you must have some ability to influence the economic sphere, which is to say, power.
Counter-economic activities cultivate influence by operating outside the state’s purview. Engaging in black and grey markets enables individuals to build economic strength without relying on state mechanisms, undermining the state’s control over resources and diminishing its legitimacy.
A starving individual seeking sustenance isn’t initiating violence
Ah, so stealing is not in fact stealing if you really really need it, gotcha.
There’s something I need to explain here and I think the only way to do it is to step back and tell you a story.
I studied physics in uni because I didn’t know what to study and it seemed like the best place to try to understand reality. The day we started studying the more complex, and weird stuff, like relativity and QM, my professor gave us a speech that really resonated with me.
“The stuff we’re about to cover doesn’t make a lot of sense, and some of you may find it troubling that the universe works in such a strange and confusing way. But in a way, it makes sense that it doesn’t make sense. Our brains evolved to understand things on a macro scale, and everything we’ve studied up to this point has operated on that level. But nothing in your genetic makeup or day to day life has equipped you to understand subatomic particles or objects approaching the speed of light. It would be very strange, then, if we were able to grasp these concepts immediately and make sense of them right off the bat. Eventually, if you keep studying and working with these concepts, they will become second nature and start to make more intuitive sense, but you just have to sort of rewire your brain a bit first.”
What’s important about his speech is that it touches on something broader that’s a little difficult to put into words. It’s the fact that reality is always just a little messy. It never works just exactly the way we want it to. Sometimes, it works in a way we really, really don’t want it to. But you study things enough, eventually you start to recognize what truth is shaped like. And for me, I make a distinction between “natural” ideas and “man-made” ideas. In a sense, all ideas are man-made, but there are certain ideas that seem to inherently reflect reality, such that any intelligent being would come up with them, physical laws and the like. But then there are other ideas that are distinctly human. They are clean, pleasing, comforting, they help us establish our identity, and they are often bullshit. They don’t reflect reality as it is, messy and imperfect, they’re always a bit too clean, and the real purpose is more psychological than anything.
Agorism is a man-made idea. The entire foundation of the philosophy, according to what you linked, is the inherent, absolute principle, that initiating violence is always wrong, and the only thing that is wrong. And yet, the first example I come up with that follows that example to a messy, uncomfortable conclusion, suddenly it doesn’t count. Somehow.
What it comes down to is that this ideology isn’t designed to actually do anything or to reflect any actual truth. It’s supposed to sit there in your head providing you with a particular sense of identity. In the realm of the physical, the results are often messy and imperfect, but in the realm of the mind, everything can always work out perfectly for everyone. Thus, Lenin’s great sin of moving things from the theoretical, where they could be clean and perfect, to the physical where they would actually have the capacity to affect change, at the cost of having to confront difficult, messy, life-or-death questions.
If someone is starving, you say, it must be because of a coercive system. But that isn’t necessarily true, and more importantly, it doesn’t really address anything. “Systems” cannot be held accountable, you cannot take the concept of Capitalism to court and demand it start giving the man bread. Suppose the man simply cannot find work - who is responsible? Every business owner who refused to hire him? Every landowner who prevents him from living in his natural state of a hunter-gatherer? But let’s broaden the scope some more - of course, in the mind palace, we can simply decide who’s responsible and hold them responsible, regardless of how much wealth or power they might possess, but what if the culprit is external and beyond our reach? Say, we’re in one of those nations that had their resources stolen, and the nation decided to reclaim its resources, and in response, the colonizers have imposed sanctions and a blockade. So the man is still starving, but it’s not because of anyone within his society, there is no one he can reasonably seek restitution from, and he doesn’t have the means to steal from the colonizers, so instead he steals from someone who’s completely innocent.
It seems to me that this absolute moral law from which the entire ideology is derived and which, above all else, must never be contradicted, doesn’t actually survive contact with the physical world. It needs so many exceptions and amendments that to make it work you essentially end up ignoring it and just doing whatever your conscience tells you is right. Which is obviously a superior approach, since that law is a nonsense, man-made idea that doesn’t actually reflect reality, while your conscience is influenced from experiences interacting with the real world.
I’ve focused too much on that point but I will try to quickly address some others.
Historical evidence demonstrates that centralised authority always leads to systemic failure and human suffering.
That’s like saying that historical evidence demonstrates walking on two legs always leads to systemic failure and human suffering. Centralized authority pops up everywhere because it is an effective way of addressing certain problems. Again, decentralization is romanticized because it is foreign and it is foreign because it often has significant problems. Decentralization is often synonymous with warlordism, not to mention things like generational blood feuds, lynch mobs, and witch burnings. Centralization has reasons for being so common, and suffering is also quite common, but that doesn’t mean that one causes the other. What is you evidence for decentralization working so much better? How do we know it’s that and not some other factor?
Counter-economic activities cultivate influence by operating outside the state’s purview. Engaging in black and grey markets enables individuals to build economic strength without relying on state mechanisms, undermining the state’s control over resources and diminishing its legitimacy.
Black and grey markets are not going to magically make you rich if you’re broke. If you’re powerless, you’re still powerless, and have no ability to affect the world until you obtain some form of power. It’s possible, of course, to acquire economic power through such means, but it’s also possible for the state to SWAT you the moment you actually become a credible threat to its legitimacy.
Ah, so stealing is not in fact stealing if you really really need it, gotcha.
You still seem to still be conflating Agorism with Anarcho-Capitalism. In an agorist society, theft like stealing bread would be rare because the conditions that lead to such desperation would not exist. State-enforced scarcity and capitalist exploitation would be replaced by mutual aid networks and decentralized cooperation, ensuring basic needs are accessible. If theft occurred, it would be addressed through restorative justice by understanding the cause, providing aid if necessary, and seeking restitution if harm was done. Social accountability, such as loss of reputation within networks, discourages repeated misconduct. The focus is on resolving issues and preventing recurrence rather than punishment.
Agorism is a man-made idea… In the realm of the physical, the results are often messy and imperfect, but in the realm of the mind, everything can always work out perfectly for everyone.
Agorism isn’t about idealism. It is grounded in pragmatism. Centralized systems cause large-scale instability and exploitation, while decentralized ones adapt to the complexities of human interactions. Perfection isn’t the goal. It is about minimizing harm and creating structures that empower individuals while avoiding systemic coercion and exploitation. Agorism acknowledges the messiness of reality and provides a framework for minimizing coercion, not eliminating it entirely. The NAP is a guiding principle, not a guarantee of utopia. Philosophical frameworks aim to reduce harm and improve conditions. They are not invalidated by challenging scenarios.
“Systems” cannot be held accountable… what if the culprit is external and beyond our reach?
Systems are made up of individuals whose actions perpetuate power dynamics. Decentralized networks empower individuals and communities to resist coercive systems directly. In cases of external blockades or sanctions, decentralized economies are more resilient. They rely on mutual aid, local production, and underground trade to bypass monopolistic control. Accountability in decentralized systems is direct and immediate, unlike the diffuse harm caused by centralised hierarchies.
It seems to me that this absolute moral law… doesn’t actually survive contact with the physical world.
The non-aggression principle isn’t dogma. It is a guideline to reduce coercion and exploitation. It recognizes that existing systems are deeply coercive and seeks to replace them with voluntary, equitable alternatives. While exceptions and complexities exist, decentralized systems avoid the systemic violence and hierarchies that dominate centralised frameworks.
Decentralisation is often synonymous with warlordism, blood feuds, lynch mobs, and witch burnings.
These are symptoms of collapsing centralized systems, not decentralized organization. True decentralization builds networks of accountability, trust, and voluntary cooperation that reduce the likelihood of such chaos. These systems ensure power isn’t monopolized, preventing the unchecked abuses often seen in collapsing hierarchies.
Black and grey markets are not going to magically make you rich if you’re broke… the state can SWAT you the moment you become a credible threat.
Black and grey markets aren’t about wealth. They are about independence. They allow individuals to operate outside of coercive systems and build resilience over time. Decentralized networks avoid single points of failure, making them harder for the state to suppress. Resistance economies in authoritarian regimes and informal networks in marginalized communities demonstrate their success in resisting oppression.
What is you evidence for decentralization working so much better? How do we know it’s that and not some other factor?
Decentralization is the obvious choice because it fundamentally disperses power, eliminating the systemic vulnerabilities inherent in centralised systems which we’ve seen fail time and time again. Decentralization is not just theoretically preferable but practically effective. It aligns with human-scale organization, minimizes systemic failures, and fosters innovation and resilience by allowing communities to adapt independently to challenges. In every system where decentralization has been implemented, it has consistently avoided the catastrophic failures seen in centralized models while empowering individuals to take ownership of their lives and their economies. It was the Agorists who joined the war on drugs on the side of drugs and won. Very quickly. Now there’s a global network that can’t be stopped and in common use around the world. Working on V2
The non-aggression principle isn’t dogma. It is a guideline to reduce coercion and exploitation.
Philosophical frameworks aim to reduce harm and improve conditions. They are not invalidated by challenging scenarios.
Excuse me?
Libertarianism elaborates an entire philosophy from one simple premise: initiatory violence or its threat (coercion) is wrong (immoral, evil, bad, supremely impractical, etc.) and is forbidden; nothing else is.
While no one can predict the sequence of steps that will unerringly achieve a free society for free-willed individuals, one can eliminate in one slash all those that will not advance Liberty, and applying the principles of the Market unwaveringly will map out a terrain to travel.
Whether or not this manifesto is itself correct can be determined by the same principle. If consistency fails, then all within is meaningless; in fact, language is then gibberish and existence a fraud. This cannot be overemphasized. Should an inconsistency be discovered in these pages, then the consistent reformulation is New Libertarianism, not what has been found in error. New Libertarianism (agorism) cannot be discredited without Liberty or Reality (or both) being discredited, only an incorrect formulation.
It really does not sound to me that the author is proposing this principle as some sort of flexible guideline or polite suggestion. It sounds as though he considers the principle quite absolute. The reason that forming a political party to influence the state towards your vision of the world is a complete betrayal of the movement because it contradicts this ironclad principle, which can never be contradicted because it is the foundation of the ideology. It seems that your views differ from the author’s.
It seems to me that if your principle can be violated in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance of condemning a starving man, it ought to be fine to violate it in order to acquire the political power you would need to implement it, since otherwise it’s nothing but talk. But then, we come back to the point that it isn’t meant to succeed, it’s just meant to occupy a space in your brain where it looks pretty and feels nice.
Even if it is merely a guideline, it’s a shitty one. Reality makes no distinction between initiation and retaliation, these are purely human concepts. It is only important to navigate such concepts insofar as it’s important to avoid offending people’s proclivities. It is no more an inherent moral principle than “You shouldn’t go outside naked.”
These are symptoms of collapsing centralized systems not decentralized organization. True decentralization builds networks of accountability, trust, and voluntary cooperation that reduce the likelihood of such chaos.
Mhm, and you’re out to collapse centralized systems.
But also, many of the things I mentioned were not symptoms of a collapsing system. Blood feuds lasted generations with no societal collapse in sight. Ditto for lynch mobs and witch burnings.
All you’ve done here it point to something, centralization, that is very widespread because of it’s effectiveness and necessity, and randomly assigned every bad thing that ever happens to it, while completely ignoring the bad things that happen when it is not present. It is, again, because the idea is meant to only exist in your mind. There is no reason to really apply harsh, critical thought to it, because if it turns out to have glaring flaws, it doesn’t actually matter because it’s all a thought experiment.
Konkin’s absolutist framing of the NAP ensures a clear philosophical foundation for Agorism, yet consistency in principle doesn’t preclude adaptability in practice.
A starving individual stealing bread may technically violate the NAP, but this act must be seen in the broader context of systemic coercion. Agorism doesn’t excuse or celebrate such acts but seeks to eliminate the root causes that compel them. Rather than contradicting the NAP, this flexibility aligns with its ultimate goal of reducing coercion over time. Far from being arbitrary, this resonates with universal truths about cooperation, as illustrated by game theory and evolutionary models.
Konkin believed “a lot more than statism would need to be eliminated from individual consciousness” for a free society to flourish and called for a “thick” libertarianism that addressed class struggle, social justice, and other factors beyond mere opposition to the state.
“Among important figures in the development of the modern libertarian movement, Konkin stands out in his insistence that libertarianism rightly conceived belongs on the radical left wing of the political spectrum,” writes David S. D’Amato for Libertarianism.org “His Movement of the Libertarian Left, founded as a coalition of leftist free marketers, resisted the association of libertarianism with conservatism. Further positioning it on the left, agorism embraces the notion of class war and entails a distinctly libertarian analysis of class struggle and stratification.”
Mhm, and you’re out to collapse centralized systems.
Yes, but the collapse of centralized systems through decentralized alternatives does not imply chaos or the perpetuation of the abuses associated with centralized structures. The aim is not to cause disorder but to replace coercive systems with voluntary, accountable, and distributed ones.
But also, many of the things I mentioned were not symptoms of a collapsing system. Blood feuds lasted generations with no societal collapse in sight. Ditto for lynch mobs and witch burnings.
These occurrences are not intrinsic to decentralisation. They arise when mechanisms of trust and accountability fail, whether power is centralized or distributed. True decentralisation requires voluntary structures that prevent abuses by fostering local responsibility and direct accountability.
All you’ve done here it point to something, centralization, that is very widespread because of it’s effectiveness and necessity, and randomly assigned every bad thing that ever happens to it, while completely ignoring the bad things that happen when it is not present. It is, again, because the idea is meant to only exist in your mind. There is no reason to really apply harsh, critical thought to it, because if it turns out to have glaring flaws, it doesn’t actually matter because it’s all a thought experiment.
Centralisation persists mainly because it suppresses alternatives through monopolised power rather than due to inherent efficiency. However, technology is shifting this balance, allowing individuals and communities to construct voluntary, resilient alternatives. Agorism and decentralization are not mere thought experiments but practical frameworks for distributing power, fostering accountability, and minimising systemic harm. Far from avoiding criticism, decentralisation is continually tested in real-world applications, proving its viability and effectiveness beyond mere theory. Steadily progressing toward a more autonomous, voluntary society.
Yes, but the collapse of centralized systems through decentralized alternatives does not imply chaos or the perpetuation of the abuses associated with centralized structures. The aim is not to cause disorder but to replace coercive systems with voluntary, accountable, and distributed ones.
Yes yes, you don’t support when bad things happen, you only support good things happening. The problem is that you don’t get to control exactly what things are going to look like, the best you can hope for is to set things in motion and influence the direction in a very broad sense. This is true even in cases with a centralized authority directing things, but it is doubly true in decentralized systems.
G.K. Chesterton once quipped, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Meaning, when we look at what kind of changes are needed in society, we must envision their worst form or implementation, because nothing ever works out as perfectly in reality as it does in our heads, and if we can still say that changing society in that direction is a good thing even when it is done messily and imperfectly, only then should we really try to push for that change. You do not get to control whether decentralization will look like communities banding together in support or roving bands of mercenaries seizing anything that’s not nailed down with no one to stop them, unless you have an actual means of ensuring that one happens and not the other. All you get to do is open the can of worm of decentralization (although, frankly, you don’t get to do that since you’re allergic to seizing the necessary power to do it) and what happens next is outside of your control.
Of course, so long as you’re content to keep your ideas in the realm of fantasy, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You can just imagine that things would work out perfectly and be satisfied with the thought of it. No need to confront any difficult practical questions. Everyone will simply choose to do good things so you never have to worry about it.
Centralisation persists mainly because it suppresses alternatives through monopolised power rather than due to inherent efficiency.
And how, exactly, is an inferior system able to suppress a superior one?
“Distort economic interactions” is idealist nonsense, as is this whole conception of a “truly freed market.” Here in reality, groups pursue their own interests, and in a capitalist system, wealth will concentrate enough that the bourgeoisie will inevitably be able to seize power and change the laws to create a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, unless they are prevented from doing so through “Auth” means. “Auth” is not a real political alignment, it’s a bedtime story your rulers tell you to make sure you don’t get any funny ideas about trying to actually wield power or challenge them. There is only one physical reality, and what happens in that reality is a function of who holds power and what they do with it. When starving peasants are storming the gates of the rich to seize their food, what is more or less authoritarian, to stop them, to help them, or to sit back and watch? It is a nonsense concept.
What zero theory does to a MFer.
There is a practical process of dismantling state-enforced monopolies and coercion. Authoritarianism, whether bourgeois or revolutionary, perpetuates centralised power. True liberation arises not from seizing power but from rendering coercive systems obsolete through counter-economic action.
In reality, political revolution only changes rulers; the system of coercion remains. Only through economic revolution can true liberation be achieved.
Nothing idealist about it. Seems the be the only praxis that’s made any progress actually rather than circlejerking over theory we know doesn’t work.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/samuel-edward-konkin-iii-new-libertarian-manifesto
It’s always very funny the absolute disdain people have towards Lenin and his body of work, or rather, the disdain you have towards the idea of reading anything he wrote. Even from a purely historical perspective, he’s one of the most important people of the 20th century, if not all history. And yet you always refuse to read anything he wrote while having very strong opinions regarding his ideology. His greatest crime, of course, was that he had the audacity to put theory into practice, and to do things to actually affect material change rather than sitting around theorizing.
This is nonsense because without power it is impossible to affect change. In order to conduct counter-economic action, you must have some ability to influence the economic sphere, which is to say, power. You can dress it up in flowery language all you like, but ultimately, you have a vision of the world that you’re seeking to enforce through economic power. The only difference is that you’re choosing to tie a hand behind your back before fighting a pack of lions. Building and exerting economic power is all well and good, but it would be incredibly foolish not to use any means of power available (including political) in a life-or-death struggle against a far stronger foe. And what do you get in exchange, the satisfaction of feeling like you’re being ideologically consistent, while the state guns down everyone you care about?
This is fully suicidal. States have the ability to leverage overwhelming force against “local, immediate self-defense,” which they pretty much always have been since the days of knights and lords, but it is especially absurd in the context of modern militaries.
The crushing of the Paris Commune, the lack of coordination in Republic Spain… the only reason anybody thinks this is at all viable or desireable is because they haven’t seen it in action, and they haven’t seen it in action because people learned from it’s historical failures, or they were defeated.
Even if the forces were evenly matched (which they wouldn’t be), it’s very easy to divide and conquer. Without a unified front, forces cannot be dispatched to defend strategically vital locations, people will insist on defending their own homes and towns, which a centrally managed force can easily take advantage of.
This is extraordinarily idealist. “Initiatory violence” is a concept inherently tied to property rights. It is also completely wrong. Is is wrong (immoral, evil, suprememely impractical) for a starving man to steal bread for his family? Or does theft not count as “initiatory violence” if you really, really need it?
But let’s use a more real world example. There are many countries around the world where the people live in abject poverty, even though the natural resources are quite plentiful. In many cases, their resources were seized by force during colonialism, and now continue to be owned by foreign multinational corporations. Is it wrong (immoral, evil, supremely impractical) for those nations to reclaim control of those resources, given the opportunity? And for that matter, was it “supremely impractical” for colonial powers to seize those resources in the first place? Because it seems like the people who did it made a lot of money off of it and died quite rich and happy.
Of course, this moral proclamation is handed down from on high by the author, without establishing any kind of philosophical basis for it, let alone any consideration of how thing function in the actual, material world. Why should I not simply reject this assertion?
The issue isn’t the implementation of theory but the centralisation of power. Lenin’s approach replaced one form of coercion with another, perpetuating oppression under a different guise. True liberation arises from dismantling coercive systems entirely and fostering voluntary, decentralised networks that operate independently of centralised control.
Political power often reinforces the very structures it seeks to dismantle. Genuine change stems from creating resilient, voluntary networks that operate in the shadows, gradually eroding state influence through counter-economic activities. By building these systems, we undermine coercive institutions without legitimising them through political engagement.
By the time local self-defence becomes necessary, the state’s power will have diminished due to the proliferation of decentralised, counter-economic networks. These networks, operating independently, build resilience and adaptability, making it impossible for centralised authorities to suppress them effectively.
A starving individual seeking sustenance isn’t initiating violence, the coercive system that led to their deprivation bears responsibility. Reclaiming resources taken through coercion is justified, whereas establishing new systems of authority through violence perpetuates cycles of oppression.
Coercive systems have consistently failed to deliver genuine freedom. Building decentralised, voluntary networks offers a sustainable path to liberation, circumventing the instability and oppression inherent in centralised power structures. Historical evidence demonstrates that centralised authority always leads to systemic failure and human suffering.
Counter-economic activities cultivate influence by operating outside the state’s purview. Engaging in black and grey markets enables individuals to build economic strength without relying on state mechanisms, undermining the state’s control over resources and diminishing its legitimacy.
Ah, so stealing is not in fact stealing if you really really need it, gotcha.
There’s something I need to explain here and I think the only way to do it is to step back and tell you a story.
I studied physics in uni because I didn’t know what to study and it seemed like the best place to try to understand reality. The day we started studying the more complex, and weird stuff, like relativity and QM, my professor gave us a speech that really resonated with me.
“The stuff we’re about to cover doesn’t make a lot of sense, and some of you may find it troubling that the universe works in such a strange and confusing way. But in a way, it makes sense that it doesn’t make sense. Our brains evolved to understand things on a macro scale, and everything we’ve studied up to this point has operated on that level. But nothing in your genetic makeup or day to day life has equipped you to understand subatomic particles or objects approaching the speed of light. It would be very strange, then, if we were able to grasp these concepts immediately and make sense of them right off the bat. Eventually, if you keep studying and working with these concepts, they will become second nature and start to make more intuitive sense, but you just have to sort of rewire your brain a bit first.”
What’s important about his speech is that it touches on something broader that’s a little difficult to put into words. It’s the fact that reality is always just a little messy. It never works just exactly the way we want it to. Sometimes, it works in a way we really, really don’t want it to. But you study things enough, eventually you start to recognize what truth is shaped like. And for me, I make a distinction between “natural” ideas and “man-made” ideas. In a sense, all ideas are man-made, but there are certain ideas that seem to inherently reflect reality, such that any intelligent being would come up with them, physical laws and the like. But then there are other ideas that are distinctly human. They are clean, pleasing, comforting, they help us establish our identity, and they are often bullshit. They don’t reflect reality as it is, messy and imperfect, they’re always a bit too clean, and the real purpose is more psychological than anything.
Agorism is a man-made idea. The entire foundation of the philosophy, according to what you linked, is the inherent, absolute principle, that initiating violence is always wrong, and the only thing that is wrong. And yet, the first example I come up with that follows that example to a messy, uncomfortable conclusion, suddenly it doesn’t count. Somehow.
What it comes down to is that this ideology isn’t designed to actually do anything or to reflect any actual truth. It’s supposed to sit there in your head providing you with a particular sense of identity. In the realm of the physical, the results are often messy and imperfect, but in the realm of the mind, everything can always work out perfectly for everyone. Thus, Lenin’s great sin of moving things from the theoretical, where they could be clean and perfect, to the physical where they would actually have the capacity to affect change, at the cost of having to confront difficult, messy, life-or-death questions.
If someone is starving, you say, it must be because of a coercive system. But that isn’t necessarily true, and more importantly, it doesn’t really address anything. “Systems” cannot be held accountable, you cannot take the concept of Capitalism to court and demand it start giving the man bread. Suppose the man simply cannot find work - who is responsible? Every business owner who refused to hire him? Every landowner who prevents him from living in his natural state of a hunter-gatherer? But let’s broaden the scope some more - of course, in the mind palace, we can simply decide who’s responsible and hold them responsible, regardless of how much wealth or power they might possess, but what if the culprit is external and beyond our reach? Say, we’re in one of those nations that had their resources stolen, and the nation decided to reclaim its resources, and in response, the colonizers have imposed sanctions and a blockade. So the man is still starving, but it’s not because of anyone within his society, there is no one he can reasonably seek restitution from, and he doesn’t have the means to steal from the colonizers, so instead he steals from someone who’s completely innocent.
It seems to me that this absolute moral law from which the entire ideology is derived and which, above all else, must never be contradicted, doesn’t actually survive contact with the physical world. It needs so many exceptions and amendments that to make it work you essentially end up ignoring it and just doing whatever your conscience tells you is right. Which is obviously a superior approach, since that law is a nonsense, man-made idea that doesn’t actually reflect reality, while your conscience is influenced from experiences interacting with the real world.
I’ve focused too much on that point but I will try to quickly address some others.
That’s like saying that historical evidence demonstrates walking on two legs always leads to systemic failure and human suffering. Centralized authority pops up everywhere because it is an effective way of addressing certain problems. Again, decentralization is romanticized because it is foreign and it is foreign because it often has significant problems. Decentralization is often synonymous with warlordism, not to mention things like generational blood feuds, lynch mobs, and witch burnings. Centralization has reasons for being so common, and suffering is also quite common, but that doesn’t mean that one causes the other. What is you evidence for decentralization working so much better? How do we know it’s that and not some other factor?
Black and grey markets are not going to magically make you rich if you’re broke. If you’re powerless, you’re still powerless, and have no ability to affect the world until you obtain some form of power. It’s possible, of course, to acquire economic power through such means, but it’s also possible for the state to SWAT you the moment you actually become a credible threat to its legitimacy.
You still seem to still be conflating Agorism with Anarcho-Capitalism. In an agorist society, theft like stealing bread would be rare because the conditions that lead to such desperation would not exist. State-enforced scarcity and capitalist exploitation would be replaced by mutual aid networks and decentralized cooperation, ensuring basic needs are accessible. If theft occurred, it would be addressed through restorative justice by understanding the cause, providing aid if necessary, and seeking restitution if harm was done. Social accountability, such as loss of reputation within networks, discourages repeated misconduct. The focus is on resolving issues and preventing recurrence rather than punishment.
Agorism isn’t about idealism. It is grounded in pragmatism. Centralized systems cause large-scale instability and exploitation, while decentralized ones adapt to the complexities of human interactions. Perfection isn’t the goal. It is about minimizing harm and creating structures that empower individuals while avoiding systemic coercion and exploitation. Agorism acknowledges the messiness of reality and provides a framework for minimizing coercion, not eliminating it entirely. The NAP is a guiding principle, not a guarantee of utopia. Philosophical frameworks aim to reduce harm and improve conditions. They are not invalidated by challenging scenarios.
Systems are made up of individuals whose actions perpetuate power dynamics. Decentralized networks empower individuals and communities to resist coercive systems directly. In cases of external blockades or sanctions, decentralized economies are more resilient. They rely on mutual aid, local production, and underground trade to bypass monopolistic control. Accountability in decentralized systems is direct and immediate, unlike the diffuse harm caused by centralised hierarchies.
The non-aggression principle isn’t dogma. It is a guideline to reduce coercion and exploitation. It recognizes that existing systems are deeply coercive and seeks to replace them with voluntary, equitable alternatives. While exceptions and complexities exist, decentralized systems avoid the systemic violence and hierarchies that dominate centralised frameworks.
These are symptoms of collapsing centralized systems, not decentralized organization. True decentralization builds networks of accountability, trust, and voluntary cooperation that reduce the likelihood of such chaos. These systems ensure power isn’t monopolized, preventing the unchecked abuses often seen in collapsing hierarchies.
Black and grey markets aren’t about wealth. They are about independence. They allow individuals to operate outside of coercive systems and build resilience over time. Decentralized networks avoid single points of failure, making them harder for the state to suppress. Resistance economies in authoritarian regimes and informal networks in marginalized communities demonstrate their success in resisting oppression.
Decentralization is the obvious choice because it fundamentally disperses power, eliminating the systemic vulnerabilities inherent in centralised systems which we’ve seen fail time and time again. Decentralization is not just theoretically preferable but practically effective. It aligns with human-scale organization, minimizes systemic failures, and fosters innovation and resilience by allowing communities to adapt independently to challenges. In every system where decentralization has been implemented, it has consistently avoided the catastrophic failures seen in centralized models while empowering individuals to take ownership of their lives and their economies. It was the Agorists who joined the war on drugs on the side of drugs and won. Very quickly. Now there’s a global network that can’t be stopped and in common use around the world. Working on V2
Excuse me?
It really does not sound to me that the author is proposing this principle as some sort of flexible guideline or polite suggestion. It sounds as though he considers the principle quite absolute. The reason that forming a political party to influence the state towards your vision of the world is a complete betrayal of the movement because it contradicts this ironclad principle, which can never be contradicted because it is the foundation of the ideology. It seems that your views differ from the author’s.
It seems to me that if your principle can be violated in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance of condemning a starving man, it ought to be fine to violate it in order to acquire the political power you would need to implement it, since otherwise it’s nothing but talk. But then, we come back to the point that it isn’t meant to succeed, it’s just meant to occupy a space in your brain where it looks pretty and feels nice.
Even if it is merely a guideline, it’s a shitty one. Reality makes no distinction between initiation and retaliation, these are purely human concepts. It is only important to navigate such concepts insofar as it’s important to avoid offending people’s proclivities. It is no more an inherent moral principle than “You shouldn’t go outside naked.”
Mhm, and you’re out to collapse centralized systems.
But also, many of the things I mentioned were not symptoms of a collapsing system. Blood feuds lasted generations with no societal collapse in sight. Ditto for lynch mobs and witch burnings.
All you’ve done here it point to something, centralization, that is very widespread because of it’s effectiveness and necessity, and randomly assigned every bad thing that ever happens to it, while completely ignoring the bad things that happen when it is not present. It is, again, because the idea is meant to only exist in your mind. There is no reason to really apply harsh, critical thought to it, because if it turns out to have glaring flaws, it doesn’t actually matter because it’s all a thought experiment.
Konkin’s absolutist framing of the NAP ensures a clear philosophical foundation for Agorism, yet consistency in principle doesn’t preclude adaptability in practice.
A starving individual stealing bread may technically violate the NAP, but this act must be seen in the broader context of systemic coercion. Agorism doesn’t excuse or celebrate such acts but seeks to eliminate the root causes that compel them. Rather than contradicting the NAP, this flexibility aligns with its ultimate goal of reducing coercion over time. Far from being arbitrary, this resonates with universal truths about cooperation, as illustrated by game theory and evolutionary models.
Konkin believed “a lot more than statism would need to be eliminated from individual consciousness” for a free society to flourish and called for a “thick” libertarianism that addressed class struggle, social justice, and other factors beyond mere opposition to the state.
Yes, but the collapse of centralized systems through decentralized alternatives does not imply chaos or the perpetuation of the abuses associated with centralized structures. The aim is not to cause disorder but to replace coercive systems with voluntary, accountable, and distributed ones.
These occurrences are not intrinsic to decentralisation. They arise when mechanisms of trust and accountability fail, whether power is centralized or distributed. True decentralisation requires voluntary structures that prevent abuses by fostering local responsibility and direct accountability.
Centralisation persists mainly because it suppresses alternatives through monopolised power rather than due to inherent efficiency. However, technology is shifting this balance, allowing individuals and communities to construct voluntary, resilient alternatives. Agorism and decentralization are not mere thought experiments but practical frameworks for distributing power, fostering accountability, and minimising systemic harm. Far from avoiding criticism, decentralisation is continually tested in real-world applications, proving its viability and effectiveness beyond mere theory. Steadily progressing toward a more autonomous, voluntary society.
Yes yes, you don’t support when bad things happen, you only support good things happening. The problem is that you don’t get to control exactly what things are going to look like, the best you can hope for is to set things in motion and influence the direction in a very broad sense. This is true even in cases with a centralized authority directing things, but it is doubly true in decentralized systems.
G.K. Chesterton once quipped, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Meaning, when we look at what kind of changes are needed in society, we must envision their worst form or implementation, because nothing ever works out as perfectly in reality as it does in our heads, and if we can still say that changing society in that direction is a good thing even when it is done messily and imperfectly, only then should we really try to push for that change. You do not get to control whether decentralization will look like communities banding together in support or roving bands of mercenaries seizing anything that’s not nailed down with no one to stop them, unless you have an actual means of ensuring that one happens and not the other. All you get to do is open the can of worm of decentralization (although, frankly, you don’t get to do that since you’re allergic to seizing the necessary power to do it) and what happens next is outside of your control.
Of course, so long as you’re content to keep your ideas in the realm of fantasy, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You can just imagine that things would work out perfectly and be satisfied with the thought of it. No need to confront any difficult practical questions. Everyone will simply choose to do good things so you never have to worry about it.
And how, exactly, is an inferior system able to suppress a superior one?